Saturday, March 21
Texts: Psalm 23; 1 Samuel 15:32-34; John 1:1-9
Scripture Thought: 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.
Reflection: I think we could use a little light about now, don’t you? It’s dark right now, and some light would do a lot of people a lot of good. So would an effective medicine, and ample supplies for hospital workers of all kinds. So would good will among the worried citizens of this and other countries currently working to curb the pandemic that has cast its shadow over every facet of society.
Light is a different image from that of shepherd, the one we have seen in the past three days of reading Psalm 23. Yet the concept is the same--without some outside help, there’s not much hope for the person caught up in the realities of this world, where dangers lurk and where darkness confuses. The lurking dangers might be armies of the enemy, the specter of a disease we did not see coming, a natural disaster, or a host of other things that pose danger to life and health. The confusion comes from the fact that not only is the threat very real and present, but it’s also one we have not encountered before, so we don’t quite know what the appropriate weapons or strategies might be.
The Lord is my shepherd. The light of men was coming into the world, a light who would later describe himself as a shepherd as well. Here to guide us safely, here to dispel our confusion. There has always been plenty of darkness to go around. It was very dark when judges ruled in Israel, and the people first clamored for a king. It was dark when that first king turned away from the Lord and brought misery upon the people, affecting even Samuel, the prophet of the Lord. It was dark in the days of John the Baptist, who came to prepare the way for the Light of the World. It has been dark many times in the world’s history since then; and it seems dark in these very days in the western world, as COVID-19 works its way across the land. But . . .
The true light did not come and leave again without leaving his mark behind. The unbelieving world might have denied the light, and the church might have put it under a basket instead of on a lampstand, but the light is here. The way forward can be found. The Holy Spirit continues the work of Jesus by doing it through people. Let’s pray and believe that insights will break forth and that grace will prepare the way for people to see and hear and be healed--not just of a previously unknown illness, but of disbelief, the most serious of diseases.
Prayer. Lord, let Your light shine both on us and through us as we face a significant challenge to life, to health, and to our economic well-being. May the Light of the World show us how to dwell in true community, how to check the rising anxiety, and how to keep Your light shining, high above the fray. Show the way to researchers, give strength to those working long hours, and patience for those who must face an anxious crowd. We place our trust once more in You, Jesus. Amen
Friday, March 20, 2020
Texts: Psalm 23; 1 Samuel 15:22-31; Ephesians 5:1-9
Scripture Thought (Eph. 5:1-2): 1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Reflection: The point of having a shepherd is that the sheep might go in the right direction. It's a direction in which only the shepherd is equipped to lead. Paul put it in quite different terms, but only because he was on the other side of the events that demonstrated the depth of Jesus’ love for the world. “Walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” Do what Jesus did; place the needs of others above your own. That’s following the one who is described as a shepherd to a culture that knew much more about such a role than does ours. “Walk in the way of love” is a timeless expression. It’s always appropriate, always translates, and always transforms.
Rather than making lists of things we should and should not do, might it not be better Christian practice to continually ask if what we are doing follows in the path that Jesus laid out for us? Have you or I loved the people we encounter enough to give up ourselves for their sake? Are their needs met before we take care of ourselves and our wants? In our current battle against the COVID-19 virus, do we find it too much of an inconvenience to forego our daily routines in order that some unknown person--who may or may not remain unknown to us--might have a better chance at avoiding potentially grave illness? Or do we rail against the authorities who curtail our “freedom”? Or let's go back to King Saul for a moment. Saul’s problem wasn’t that he did not acknowledge God. Saul’s problem was that he did not understand who God was and what it meant to lead His people. He didn’t understand the way of love. Following bare commands without seeking the heart of the commander will eventually result in dismissing the commands entirely, substituting what seems good at the moment--like appeasing the soldiers who wanted to take home the spoils of battle. A loving shepherd knows that allowing that while ignoring God's directive is not in their best interest.
Pier pressure, whether real or imagined, has led believing people to slide into ungodly ways of thinking and especially of speaking. It’s not the way of love. But God’s love for us is so great, that even if anyone has fallen into the categories of sin Paul mentions, God will give them a new identity--the sin no longer defines or describes who we are “in Christ.” He not only forgives our sin, but he changes our identity. Thank God for his glorious love in Christ!
Prayer. Lord, Your love truly is amazing. Thank You for loving me enough to stay with me even though I walked in ways that were unloving toward other people and toward You. Thank You for showing us the path we should follow; for in a confused and bewildered world, that path is harder to see than it was the day before. By Your Spirit, lead me nonetheless, that people will know that You live. Amen.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Texts: Psalm 23; 1 Samuel 15:10-21; Ephesians 4:25-32
Scripture Thought (Ps. 23:1): The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
Reflection: One simple verse, one line, one powerful thought. If we get it, we are blessed. We enjoy the best of life in this world. Really. Our difficulty is that we commit ourselves into this shepherd’s hand incompletely.
Saul was a case in point. As Samuel confronted him about Saul’s disobedience to the Lord’s command, he also reiterated the possibilities that had been laid before him in the beginning. Alas, they had disappeared because Saul did not trust his shepherd. Perhaps he thought he could have what had been promised and a little more, including the approval of his soldiers and their families, who would benefit from taking the forbidden though customary spoils of battle. Why not do things the normal way--destroy the enemy and take his goods? It’s good stuff, why should it go to waste? That would be a shame. The Lord, the God of Israel, had ceased being his guide in practice; now, through Samuel’s condemnation, it was pronounced unmistakably and finally. That might be one of the most tragic scenes in the history of Israel.
The truth is most of us, and maybe all of us, have times when we do not allow the shepherding of Jesus to be complete. We still harken to other voices and begin following their call when they offer us things that are good, or at least seem to be good, in ways that are not. Paul is writing to persons who demonstrated that sort of incomplete following of Jesus in most of his epistles, including the one to the Ephesian believers. The lure of old ways was still powerful in some of their minds. Isn’t it so in many of ours? Anger, falsehood, dishonesty in business, theft--all of them have a purpose, a purpose which is to give us what we want in life. What we want. When the Lord is truly the shepherd, there is no want, no lack, of anything that is truly good. Learning that, believing that, trusting that in the moment of temptation is what our lives as believers come down to. The Lord is my shepherd, said David. Who will be yours, mine? Who will be the one we fully trust to give us what we truly need?
Prayer: Today, O Lord, I recommit to following my true shepherd. I confess that there are times I don’t hear his voice because others are drowning it out so that it becomes faint. Forgive me, I pray, for thinking there is a good that you will not provide, pasture to which you will not lead when the time is right, and fresh water you will not show me in the hour I need it. May your Word nourish me so that I will not be drawn aside this day. Amen.
Wednesday, March 18
Texts: Psalm 81; Jeremiah 2:4-13; John 7:14-31, 37-39
Scripture Thoughts (Jer. 2:11-13; John 7:37-39) Has a nation ever changed its gods?(Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols.12 Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord. 13” My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
Reflection: Could there be a stronger contrast than the one presented in the two passages from today’s Scripture lessons? A broken cistern that cannot even hold water on one hand, and a spring, continually delivers water on the other. That’s a night and day difference if ever there was one.
The prophet Jeremiah complains about a phenomenon that does not make sense; yet it happens far too often, not just then, but now as well. Even after seeing the hand of God working among His people multiple times, even after experiencing His blessing, people are prone to turning their eyes toward something else that seems desirable, then do what’s necessary to obtain that “something.” If that desired good, whether material or tied to power or status, requires the embracing of some method or philosophy that leads to the goal, it will be embraced, even at the expense of one’s loyalty to the God they have known and have known to be faithful. The forbidden fruit still dazzles. The exchange of God’s ways for the ways toward an earthly goal is usually not made at once, but rather in slow but steady increments. Little by little, but once the direction is set, it all too often proves irreversible. The result is that a flowing, cool, ever fresh spring is replaced by a stale, stagnant cistern that eventually leaks out completely. The things that once dazzled can’t come close to providing satisfaction. Then everything is gone.
Jesus, however, talks about the spring once more. But this time it’s even more amazing. Not only is the one who comes to him in faith provided with the best water--the spring--but that person actually becomes the conduit through which the blessing of God will flow. When the Holy Spirit--God in the third person--enters into people, that Holy Spirit does what God does. He provides the refreshment that all of us seek, that satisfaction of the soul that cannot be found in a cistern or anywhere else. We can stop looking for satisfaction or thrills or experiences or possessions or anything else that catches our ear or eye; believe in him for everything you’ll ever need, not just for some future day beyond this world, but for the absolute best within this one. Lent provides us with the time to ask ourselves whether we’ve exchanged the spring of God’s love for a leaky tank of stale water.
Prayer: Lord, there are times when I am drawn to believe that the best in life is what the world offers, rather than what You give and desire to give to others through me. Forgive my wandering eyes and ears, and hold me fast, so that I remember your goodness and truly trust your promise of life in abundance. May Your Holy Spirit flow freely in my life. Amen.
, March 17, 2020
Texts: Psalm 81; Genesis 29:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4
Scripture Thought (1 Cor. 10:1-4): For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.
Reflection: Solidarity. Group identity. It’s something largely subdued in our individualistic culture. We encourage standing out from the crowd, pursuing one’s own dreams, forging one’s own path and grasping the rewards that come with it. Express yourself! It’s a far cry from the kind of social unity that formed the fabric of culture in biblical times, a fact that complicates our efforts at comprehending all of what transpires, particularly in the Old Testament. It was the people of God, the whole, far more than it was the individual persons who comprised that “people” that mattered most, for good or for ill. It was the total group that was to represent God to the world around them, displaying what it meant to live in peace, in justice, and equity. That’s a corporate display.
The other side of the solidarity is that what happens to the group happens to the individuals within it--and not always, perhaps seldom, proportionately to the relative goodness or culpability of the individuals. That seems unfair to us. The group undergoes hardship, and the “good guys” often get caught up in the worst of it. Individuals also can be carried along with the best of it, even if undeserving in their own actions. In Paul’s description of the Israelite experience in the wilderness, they all became part of Moses in the sense that they benefited from the miraculous provision of God.
Perhaps that sense of group identity, of solidarity with others for good or for ill, is being reintroduced to us. No one needs to be told about the COVID-19 situation. We are aware, yet maybe not of all the right aspects of what this health crisis is doing--not physically, but socially. We find ourselves being restricted in different areas of daily life, not because we are personally sick, or even that we inevitably will become sick. It’s because some among us are likely to be infected that we all are called upon to act in ways that will reduce the danger for the rest of us. It will require cooperation from everyone, consideration for everyone. That, quite frankly, isn’t the way many of us live or make decisions. But in the household of God, it should be something in our minds--making choices that are good for people other than ourselves, depriving ourselves of good things in order that others will have what they need. We are, indeed, in this together.
Prayer. Lord, we’ve been taught by the world to think of ourselves, our own needs, our own rights, our own rewards. Your way is different; join us together in Christ, through whom and in whom we are blessed. Forgive us our selfish ways; join us with your people in truth and in deeds that declare his love for the world. We pray for your light to shine through your church in our time of need. United with you and with one another, send your healing word to this anxious world. Amen.
, March 16
Texts: Psalm 81; Genesis 24:1-27; 2 John 1:1-13
Scripture Thought (Ps. 81:13-16): “If my people would only listen to me; if Israel would only follow my ways,14 how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever.16 But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
Reflection: “If only.” How often we have heard and spoken those words. ”If only” he had not done this;” if only” she had listened; “if only” I hadn’t said that. “If only” that had not happened. We imagine a world or a life that could have been significantly different had one little thing had been handled in a different way from what actually occurred. Of course, we can never truly know what might have actually come about under the altered set of circumstances we propose. There could have been an entirely different outcome, set in motion by that one little thing we might like to have changed, but not in the way we imagine. None of this prevents people from speculating, bemoaning, ruing, complaining, or becoming bitter about past events. Some people spend their entire lives living in the “what ifs” of the past.
God speaks through the psalmist to His chosen people Israel. His words “if only” are not about the past, however, but about the present and the future. And the conditions for a better outcome do not lie in the hands of some other person or nation, nor are they tied to fickle fate or dependent upon unforeseen forces or events. ”If only My people would listen to me and follow my ways”.--that’s the only condition for bringing about the best conditions imaginable. His blessing would follow. The implication is that if the people would continue not listening and not following, they would inevitably look back and wonder what could have been “if only” they had listened and followed.
I wonder if today’s church is paying heed to the words of God and corporately following what He wants us to do. I wonder if the lower status of the church in the eyes of the world owes less to the world and more to us as we do things in ways that are not those prescribed by our king. It’s not “if only” the world would listen to our message; it’s “if only” His people will listen and follow. We might be surprised at the difference in outcome, and at how silent the accusing voices become. Do the works of Jesus; he came to bring life, not condemnation. He came to heal the sick, raise the dead, bring good news to the poor. Let’s look for ways to follow.
Prayer: Lord Christ, you came to restore us to life as it was intended from the beginning. Teach us to follow and see the blessing that comes upon us, and upon the world as it recognizes you and your heart through the people called by Your name. You have spoken and you have led the way. Thank you, Lord. Amen.
Texts: Psalm 23; 1 Samuel 15:32-34; John 1:1-9
Scripture Thought: 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.
Reflection: I think we could use a little light about now, don’t you? It’s dark right now, and some light would do a lot of people a lot of good. So would an effective medicine, and ample supplies for hospital workers of all kinds. So would good will among the worried citizens of this and other countries currently working to curb the pandemic that has cast its shadow over every facet of society.
Light is a different image from that of shepherd, the one we have seen in the past three days of reading Psalm 23. Yet the concept is the same--without some outside help, there’s not much hope for the person caught up in the realities of this world, where dangers lurk and where darkness confuses. The lurking dangers might be armies of the enemy, the specter of a disease we did not see coming, a natural disaster, or a host of other things that pose danger to life and health. The confusion comes from the fact that not only is the threat very real and present, but it’s also one we have not encountered before, so we don’t quite know what the appropriate weapons or strategies might be.
The Lord is my shepherd. The light of men was coming into the world, a light who would later describe himself as a shepherd as well. Here to guide us safely, here to dispel our confusion. There has always been plenty of darkness to go around. It was very dark when judges ruled in Israel, and the people first clamored for a king. It was dark when that first king turned away from the Lord and brought misery upon the people, affecting even Samuel, the prophet of the Lord. It was dark in the days of John the Baptist, who came to prepare the way for the Light of the World. It has been dark many times in the world’s history since then; and it seems dark in these very days in the western world, as COVID-19 works its way across the land. But . . .
The true light did not come and leave again without leaving his mark behind. The unbelieving world might have denied the light, and the church might have put it under a basket instead of on a lampstand, but the light is here. The way forward can be found. The Holy Spirit continues the work of Jesus by doing it through people. Let’s pray and believe that insights will break forth and that grace will prepare the way for people to see and hear and be healed--not just of a previously unknown illness, but of disbelief, the most serious of diseases.
Prayer. Lord, let Your light shine both on us and through us as we face a significant challenge to life, to health, and to our economic well-being. May the Light of the World show us how to dwell in true community, how to check the rising anxiety, and how to keep Your light shining, high above the fray. Show the way to researchers, give strength to those working long hours, and patience for those who must face an anxious crowd. We place our trust once more in You, Jesus. Amen
Friday, March 20, 2020
Texts: Psalm 23; 1 Samuel 15:22-31; Ephesians 5:1-9
Scripture Thought (Eph. 5:1-2): 1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Reflection: The point of having a shepherd is that the sheep might go in the right direction. It's a direction in which only the shepherd is equipped to lead. Paul put it in quite different terms, but only because he was on the other side of the events that demonstrated the depth of Jesus’ love for the world. “Walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” Do what Jesus did; place the needs of others above your own. That’s following the one who is described as a shepherd to a culture that knew much more about such a role than does ours. “Walk in the way of love” is a timeless expression. It’s always appropriate, always translates, and always transforms.
Rather than making lists of things we should and should not do, might it not be better Christian practice to continually ask if what we are doing follows in the path that Jesus laid out for us? Have you or I loved the people we encounter enough to give up ourselves for their sake? Are their needs met before we take care of ourselves and our wants? In our current battle against the COVID-19 virus, do we find it too much of an inconvenience to forego our daily routines in order that some unknown person--who may or may not remain unknown to us--might have a better chance at avoiding potentially grave illness? Or do we rail against the authorities who curtail our “freedom”? Or let's go back to King Saul for a moment. Saul’s problem wasn’t that he did not acknowledge God. Saul’s problem was that he did not understand who God was and what it meant to lead His people. He didn’t understand the way of love. Following bare commands without seeking the heart of the commander will eventually result in dismissing the commands entirely, substituting what seems good at the moment--like appeasing the soldiers who wanted to take home the spoils of battle. A loving shepherd knows that allowing that while ignoring God's directive is not in their best interest.
Pier pressure, whether real or imagined, has led believing people to slide into ungodly ways of thinking and especially of speaking. It’s not the way of love. But God’s love for us is so great, that even if anyone has fallen into the categories of sin Paul mentions, God will give them a new identity--the sin no longer defines or describes who we are “in Christ.” He not only forgives our sin, but he changes our identity. Thank God for his glorious love in Christ!
Prayer. Lord, Your love truly is amazing. Thank You for loving me enough to stay with me even though I walked in ways that were unloving toward other people and toward You. Thank You for showing us the path we should follow; for in a confused and bewildered world, that path is harder to see than it was the day before. By Your Spirit, lead me nonetheless, that people will know that You live. Amen.
Thursday, March 19, 2020
Texts: Psalm 23; 1 Samuel 15:10-21; Ephesians 4:25-32
Scripture Thought (Ps. 23:1): The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
Reflection: One simple verse, one line, one powerful thought. If we get it, we are blessed. We enjoy the best of life in this world. Really. Our difficulty is that we commit ourselves into this shepherd’s hand incompletely.
Saul was a case in point. As Samuel confronted him about Saul’s disobedience to the Lord’s command, he also reiterated the possibilities that had been laid before him in the beginning. Alas, they had disappeared because Saul did not trust his shepherd. Perhaps he thought he could have what had been promised and a little more, including the approval of his soldiers and their families, who would benefit from taking the forbidden though customary spoils of battle. Why not do things the normal way--destroy the enemy and take his goods? It’s good stuff, why should it go to waste? That would be a shame. The Lord, the God of Israel, had ceased being his guide in practice; now, through Samuel’s condemnation, it was pronounced unmistakably and finally. That might be one of the most tragic scenes in the history of Israel.
The truth is most of us, and maybe all of us, have times when we do not allow the shepherding of Jesus to be complete. We still harken to other voices and begin following their call when they offer us things that are good, or at least seem to be good, in ways that are not. Paul is writing to persons who demonstrated that sort of incomplete following of Jesus in most of his epistles, including the one to the Ephesian believers. The lure of old ways was still powerful in some of their minds. Isn’t it so in many of ours? Anger, falsehood, dishonesty in business, theft--all of them have a purpose, a purpose which is to give us what we want in life. What we want. When the Lord is truly the shepherd, there is no want, no lack, of anything that is truly good. Learning that, believing that, trusting that in the moment of temptation is what our lives as believers come down to. The Lord is my shepherd, said David. Who will be yours, mine? Who will be the one we fully trust to give us what we truly need?
Prayer: Today, O Lord, I recommit to following my true shepherd. I confess that there are times I don’t hear his voice because others are drowning it out so that it becomes faint. Forgive me, I pray, for thinking there is a good that you will not provide, pasture to which you will not lead when the time is right, and fresh water you will not show me in the hour I need it. May your Word nourish me so that I will not be drawn aside this day. Amen.
Wednesday, March 18
Texts: Psalm 81; Jeremiah 2:4-13; John 7:14-31, 37-39
Scripture Thoughts (Jer. 2:11-13; John 7:37-39) Has a nation ever changed its gods?(Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols.12 Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror,” declares the Lord. 13” My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
Reflection: Could there be a stronger contrast than the one presented in the two passages from today’s Scripture lessons? A broken cistern that cannot even hold water on one hand, and a spring, continually delivers water on the other. That’s a night and day difference if ever there was one.
The prophet Jeremiah complains about a phenomenon that does not make sense; yet it happens far too often, not just then, but now as well. Even after seeing the hand of God working among His people multiple times, even after experiencing His blessing, people are prone to turning their eyes toward something else that seems desirable, then do what’s necessary to obtain that “something.” If that desired good, whether material or tied to power or status, requires the embracing of some method or philosophy that leads to the goal, it will be embraced, even at the expense of one’s loyalty to the God they have known and have known to be faithful. The forbidden fruit still dazzles. The exchange of God’s ways for the ways toward an earthly goal is usually not made at once, but rather in slow but steady increments. Little by little, but once the direction is set, it all too often proves irreversible. The result is that a flowing, cool, ever fresh spring is replaced by a stale, stagnant cistern that eventually leaks out completely. The things that once dazzled can’t come close to providing satisfaction. Then everything is gone.
Jesus, however, talks about the spring once more. But this time it’s even more amazing. Not only is the one who comes to him in faith provided with the best water--the spring--but that person actually becomes the conduit through which the blessing of God will flow. When the Holy Spirit--God in the third person--enters into people, that Holy Spirit does what God does. He provides the refreshment that all of us seek, that satisfaction of the soul that cannot be found in a cistern or anywhere else. We can stop looking for satisfaction or thrills or experiences or possessions or anything else that catches our ear or eye; believe in him for everything you’ll ever need, not just for some future day beyond this world, but for the absolute best within this one. Lent provides us with the time to ask ourselves whether we’ve exchanged the spring of God’s love for a leaky tank of stale water.
Prayer: Lord, there are times when I am drawn to believe that the best in life is what the world offers, rather than what You give and desire to give to others through me. Forgive my wandering eyes and ears, and hold me fast, so that I remember your goodness and truly trust your promise of life in abundance. May Your Holy Spirit flow freely in my life. Amen.
, March 17, 2020
Texts: Psalm 81; Genesis 29:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-4
Scripture Thought (1 Cor. 10:1-4): For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2 They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3 They all ate the same spiritual food 4 and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.
Reflection: Solidarity. Group identity. It’s something largely subdued in our individualistic culture. We encourage standing out from the crowd, pursuing one’s own dreams, forging one’s own path and grasping the rewards that come with it. Express yourself! It’s a far cry from the kind of social unity that formed the fabric of culture in biblical times, a fact that complicates our efforts at comprehending all of what transpires, particularly in the Old Testament. It was the people of God, the whole, far more than it was the individual persons who comprised that “people” that mattered most, for good or for ill. It was the total group that was to represent God to the world around them, displaying what it meant to live in peace, in justice, and equity. That’s a corporate display.
The other side of the solidarity is that what happens to the group happens to the individuals within it--and not always, perhaps seldom, proportionately to the relative goodness or culpability of the individuals. That seems unfair to us. The group undergoes hardship, and the “good guys” often get caught up in the worst of it. Individuals also can be carried along with the best of it, even if undeserving in their own actions. In Paul’s description of the Israelite experience in the wilderness, they all became part of Moses in the sense that they benefited from the miraculous provision of God.
Perhaps that sense of group identity, of solidarity with others for good or for ill, is being reintroduced to us. No one needs to be told about the COVID-19 situation. We are aware, yet maybe not of all the right aspects of what this health crisis is doing--not physically, but socially. We find ourselves being restricted in different areas of daily life, not because we are personally sick, or even that we inevitably will become sick. It’s because some among us are likely to be infected that we all are called upon to act in ways that will reduce the danger for the rest of us. It will require cooperation from everyone, consideration for everyone. That, quite frankly, isn’t the way many of us live or make decisions. But in the household of God, it should be something in our minds--making choices that are good for people other than ourselves, depriving ourselves of good things in order that others will have what they need. We are, indeed, in this together.
Prayer. Lord, we’ve been taught by the world to think of ourselves, our own needs, our own rights, our own rewards. Your way is different; join us together in Christ, through whom and in whom we are blessed. Forgive us our selfish ways; join us with your people in truth and in deeds that declare his love for the world. We pray for your light to shine through your church in our time of need. United with you and with one another, send your healing word to this anxious world. Amen.
, March 16
Texts: Psalm 81; Genesis 24:1-27; 2 John 1:1-13
Scripture Thought (Ps. 81:13-16): “If my people would only listen to me; if Israel would only follow my ways,14 how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!15 Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever.16 But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
Reflection: “If only.” How often we have heard and spoken those words. ”If only” he had not done this;” if only” she had listened; “if only” I hadn’t said that. “If only” that had not happened. We imagine a world or a life that could have been significantly different had one little thing had been handled in a different way from what actually occurred. Of course, we can never truly know what might have actually come about under the altered set of circumstances we propose. There could have been an entirely different outcome, set in motion by that one little thing we might like to have changed, but not in the way we imagine. None of this prevents people from speculating, bemoaning, ruing, complaining, or becoming bitter about past events. Some people spend their entire lives living in the “what ifs” of the past.
God speaks through the psalmist to His chosen people Israel. His words “if only” are not about the past, however, but about the present and the future. And the conditions for a better outcome do not lie in the hands of some other person or nation, nor are they tied to fickle fate or dependent upon unforeseen forces or events. ”If only My people would listen to me and follow my ways”.--that’s the only condition for bringing about the best conditions imaginable. His blessing would follow. The implication is that if the people would continue not listening and not following, they would inevitably look back and wonder what could have been “if only” they had listened and followed.
I wonder if today’s church is paying heed to the words of God and corporately following what He wants us to do. I wonder if the lower status of the church in the eyes of the world owes less to the world and more to us as we do things in ways that are not those prescribed by our king. It’s not “if only” the world would listen to our message; it’s “if only” His people will listen and follow. We might be surprised at the difference in outcome, and at how silent the accusing voices become. Do the works of Jesus; he came to bring life, not condemnation. He came to heal the sick, raise the dead, bring good news to the poor. Let’s look for ways to follow.
Prayer: Lord Christ, you came to restore us to life as it was intended from the beginning. Teach us to follow and see the blessing that comes upon us, and upon the world as it recognizes you and your heart through the people called by Your name. You have spoken and you have led the way. Thank you, Lord. Amen.